Plan Your Tournament Schedule

Do you have a Plan for your Tournament Schedule for the year?

After more than 15-years of involvement in Junior Golf, we know which tournaments are the “Must Play” tournaments and how to assemble a Tournament Schedule that helps you achieve your goals – and saves money.

How to get better at tournament golf?
Play in tournaments regularly. At least 1-tournament a month.

The “best” schedule is be between 20 and 30 tournaments a year. (Don’t Panic! It’s not as much as it sounds.)
As you improve, we recommend that you:

Play tournaments to improve at “Tournament Golf”

Enter Tournaments that will increase your National Ranking

Enter Tournaments you KNOW you should win

Enter Tournaments in which a Top-5 would be a solid result

Enter Tournaments that college coaches watch

Enter Tournaments playing against the top players in the Southeast

IMPORTANT: Play a lot of different golf courses – with all types of greens and fairway grasses. You have to get use to all types of conditions – hot, cold, windy, rain, wet course, etc.

A well planned Tournament Schedule will get you ready to deal with “expectations” and “pressure.”

You want to reach the point at which playing in a Golf Tournament is “normal and comfortable” and doesn’t make you “nervous” other than, perhaps, on the 1st Tee Box. But once the tournament round starts, you are focused, relaxed, and making good decisions.

We recommend a tournament schedule that has a good balance of State-Level 1-Day Tournaments, affordable 2-Day Championships, Regional-Level Tournaments, and Qualifier Tournaments that provide Exemptions to enter National-Level Championship Tournaments. You can reach the highest levels of Junior Golf and not have to travel outside the State of Alabama very often.

So, you want to play College Golf.
Just about every junior golfer is thinking about playing college golf.

The biggest question is: How do I get the attention of College Coaches?

The Answer is: play in the tournaments that the College Coaches go to recruit players.

What tournaments are those: the major National Junior Golf Championships.So how do you get in a National Junior Golf Championship Tournament? The most direct way is by playing in a Qualifier Tournament.

For 2016, the AJGO is hosting (2) Qualifier Tournaments that will allow players from Alabama to earn Exemptions to play in National Championship Tournaments. All of the Qualifiers are in Alabama and then entry fees are less than $100.
The important thing to remember is you will more than likely need to play in 5 or more a year when you are Age 15, 16, and 17 years old. It’s a question of “playing the odds.” The chances of you earning an Exemption in 1 out of 20 Qualifier Tournaments is much better than earning an Exemption when you play in just 3 Qualifier Tournaments.

You have a 3-Year “Window of Opportunity” to get in the field of a National Championship. Those 3-Years are the summer after your Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior years of High School.

Take advantage of these Qualifiers: these are THE Tournaments that your junior golf career has been building toward.
But when you earn that Exemption, great things typically start to happen: most players earn a second Exemption while playing at the National Championship Tournament. And often can keep going to several more National Championship Tournaments. It’s common for a player, once they earn that first Exemption, to play in (3) or more National-Level Tournaments.
Whatever your goals are for playing competitive Junior Golf: you want to make the High School Golf Team, you want to play college golf, etc. We are here to help you reach your goals. Please call Bill Wilcox at (205) 473-1676 if you have any questions.